At each gate is an officer, with four halberdiers, who are obliged to give an account of every thing that enters or passes out. Within these walls are three thousand eight hundred pagodas or temples, where are continually sacrificed a great number of birds and beasts, all wild, which they hold to be a more acceptable offering than the tame ones, according to the assertion of their priests, who thus pass upon them a great abuse for an article of faith. This city has, moreover, twelve hundred canals, made by the kings and people of former days, which are three fathoms deep and twelve broad, traversing the streets in every direction, over which are bridges built upon arcades, with columns at each end, and benches for the passengers. Four fairs every day are held in the different quarters, where we saw an immense abundance of silks, brocades, cloth of gold, linen and cotton goods, skins of martens and ermines, musk, aloes, fine porcelain, gold and silver plate, pearls, gold in ingots and dust, and such like articles, whereat we were all much astonished. I should want words were I to attempt a description of the quantities of the other things, such as metals of all sorts, coral, cornelian, crystal, quicksilver, vermilion, ivory, cloves, nutmegs, mace, ginger, tamarisks, cinnamon, pepper, cardamoms, borax, flower of honey, sandal, sugar, fruits, conserves, venison, fish, flesh, and fowl, as well as fruits and vegetables of every variety. There are one hundred and sixty meat markets, not only provided with the customary flesh, but with that of horses, buffaloes, the rhinoceros, tigers, lions, dogs, mules, asses, cha 1 mois, otters, and zebras, every sort being eaten in this country. There are also immense cellars filled with hams, smoked meats, pigs, boars, and birds of every description; all which I only record to show how liberally God has supplied the wants of these poor blind infidels, in order that his name may be glorified for ever."-Chap. 106. THE THREE BLIND TIPPLERS. THREE sightless inmates of the sky, Whose names were Justice-Fortune-Cupid, Somewhat monotonous and stupid, Resolved one morning to unite Their powers in an Alliance Holy, Quoth Justice Of the world below Beneath each wing, before our trip, I popp'd a golden vase of nectar, With air of earth was mix'd and muddled, Before the second vase was quaff'd, They all became completely fuddled. Now reeling, wrangling, they proceed, All struggle fiercely for dominion: Fortune, purloining Cupid's darts, Of matrimonial computers; While Love on Fortune's wheel apace Plagues mortals with incessant changes, Gives flying glimpses of his face, Then presto! pass !—away he ranges. Their pranks, their squabbles, day by day He sent them down Luck, Law, and Marriage. THE LAST OF THE FOOLS. "This fellow's wise enough to play the fool, And like the haggard, check at every feather Twelfth Night. THE reader is requested not to be under any apprehensions; nothing personal is intended either to himself or his friends: there is no fear that stultiloquence shall be hushed, or of the race of fools becoming extinct :-Heaven forefend! for in that case our occupation would be gone indeed, and we periodicalists, who live to shoot folly as it flies, might cease to extract quills from one goose in order to point them against another. The last man of the genus can never be ascertained until the conclusion of the world; it is of the last of a species that we are about to speak,—of one who still lives, and will close in his person a race and a profession long since thought to have been extinct; of one who, in the pride of his former office, and of his octogenarian survival of all his competitors, has ordered this inscription to be engraved upon his tombstone-" Here lies THE LAST OF THE COURT FOOLS." A Court is altogether such a factitious and unnatural piece of business, its monotony is productive of such an awful and overwhelming ennui, that men have been obliged to devise various expedients as a recreation, whereby they might strengthen themselves to undergo a new infliction of the old stiff, solemn, ceremonious, stately stupidity. These relaxations have assumed different modifications according to the characteristics of age and country. Having a plebeian penchant for republics, the ancient Greeks had no necessity for courtly amusements, and contented themselves with exalting the glory of their country by advancing the arts and sciences, and imitating the unaccomplished homeliness of Themistocles, who, though he could not play upon a fiddle, knew how to convert a small town into a great State. When Pericles was disposed to unbend, he invited Socrates, Plato, and other philosophers, to such a symposium as Xenophon has described; and passed his hours of dalliance with Aspasia, the most learned woman of her age, from whom he took lessons in oratory and literature as well as love. The Roman Emperors diversified their satiety of enjoyment in a more courtly manner, by a succession of pleasant and piquant pastimes, from the laceration of flies to the butchering of gladiators. In the days of chivalry it was a sport of the great to case themselves in armour, hammer at one another's heads with battle-axes to try which was the thickest, roll the rider and his horse |